Agricultural News
Lower Boxed Beef Sales with Higher Prices and Stronger U.S. Dollar
Mon, 09 Feb 2015 16:04:04 CST
On a regular basis, Ed Czerwein of the USDA Market News Office in Amarillo, Texas offers a review of the previous week's boxed beef trade. Here is the weekly boxed beef trade for week ending February 7th. The daily spot Choice boxed beef cutout ended the week last Friday at $239.08 which was 3.36 lower. There were 821 loads sold for the week in the daily box beef cutout. It was about 12 percent of the total volume. Click on the LISTEN BAR below to listen to Ed's comments about the weekly boxed beef trade.
The comprehensive or weekly average Choice cutout which includes all types of sales including the daily spot cutout was $245.03 which was 5.44 lower. There were 6,601 total loads sold which was 1,644 loads lower than the previous week. The formula sales were at 3,233 loads which was 263 loads lower than last week and about 49 percent of the total loads sold.
Exports as reported on the weekly box beef report are predominately muscle cuts and they were at 904 loads which was almost exactly the same as than the previous week. Our North American Free Trade Agreement Neighbors bought 111 loads and 793 loads were shipped overseas.
The most recent out-front sales were at 1,192 loads which was 1,215 loads lower than last week. The long term contracts dropped from 1,440 loads down to 425 loads which is still just a little bigger than normal.
Taking a look at the primal cuts, the choice chuck and round primal cut prices were five lower and the rib primal which was up slightly last week was down nine and the loin was only down one. This year we continue to have an enormous increase in imports of fresh beef which includes a large quantity of trimmings that goes into ground beef products. The latest report of imported meat passed for entry into the U.S. for January 31 showed that week we imported 25,925 metric tons of fresh beef which equates to over 57 million lbs for that one week. Year-to-date for the first five weeks of this year was running 61% higher than fresh beef imports last year and Australia is up 109%, providing the biggest individual chunk of the imports and New Zealand is up 58% and are the second largest country. U.S. high beef prices and the higher value of the dollar are definitely attracting imports.
The cow cutout was $5.92 lower and the 90 percent trimmings were $9.96 lower last Friday. The cow cutout was at $231.07 and the Select cutout was $233.81 on Friday so they continue to bounce around each other while staying pretty close in price.
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